Immersed in Christ (Romans 6:1-6) | Baptism Service

Kootenai Church

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Good morning, will you please turn to Romans chapter 6 for the scripture reading.

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Romans chapter 6, and while you're doing that, you'll notice that the stage looks different today because today is a special Sunday, we're having a baptism service.

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So things are going to be a little bit different than normal, including the number of songs and the length of the sermon, in order that we can give some time at the end for baptisms.

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We have 12 people being baptized today. So things are going to be a little bit different.

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Romans chapter 6, verses 1 through 7. Will you please stand with me as we read, and then we'll open in prayer.

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What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be.

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How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?

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Therefore, we have been buried with Him through baptism into death so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the

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Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection.

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Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him in order that our body of sin might be done away with so that we would no longer be slaves to sin, for he who has died is freed from sin.

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Let's pray together. Our Father, we rejoice in the freedom that we have in Jesus Christ and the great gift of salvation that You have given to those who are in Him.

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We thank You that our relationship to sin has changed. We thank You that we have been identified with Him in His death,

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His burial, and His resurrection. And we are grateful that we can be here today to proclaim that message, to reflect upon it, and to honor

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You and Your gospel and Your commands through believers' baptism. We put Your blessing upon this service and our worship and our fellowship one with another today that You would be honored and glorified through everything that is said and everything that is done here.

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For the honor of Christ our Lord, in whose name we pray, amen. We're going to turn our attention today again to the subject of believers' baptism.

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And before we observe this together and rejoice with those who are being baptized, I want to take a couple of moments to just simply explain what it is that we are about to do and the symbolism of it.

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So, the Lord has given to His church two ordinances that we are to observe. These ordinances are believers' baptism, or believers' immersion, and the

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Lord's Supper. And they are both continual, they are both symbolic, and they are both proclamations of something.

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They are both continual in the sense that they are given to the church to be observed and to participate in until the

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Lord comes, until the end of the age. Matthew chapter 28, the Lord said, I am with you always even to the end of the age.

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And that was in the context of Him describing baptism and saying that we are to go into all the world and to make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the

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Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We are to do this all the way up until the end of the age, until He returns. That's the commission.

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And communion is to be observed as long as the church age exists until the

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Lord comes. In fact, we often read that passage in 1 Corinthians 11, for as often as you eat of this bread and drink of the cup, you proclaim the

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Lord's death until He comes. So we are to observe both of these continually, the church is, until the

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Lord returns. Second, both ordinances are symbolic. They both represent something else.

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They're not vehicles of grace in themselves. They're not salvific, but rather they represent something in a very tactile and physical way.

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The bread represents the body of the Lord Jesus. The juice represents His blood. And every time we take the body and blood of the

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Lord Jesus, those symbols, not actual body and blood, but those symbols, when we take those to ourselves and we eat them, we are symbolically appropriating those things that represent

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His sacrifice to ourselves. Baptism also is symbolic in that it is a tactile reminder of Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection and our participation in His work.

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And both ordinances are proclamations of something. We eat and drink of the Lord's table and we proclaim

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His death. Every time we do that and we explain the elements, we are proclaiming outwardly something that is true in the spiritual realm, namely that Jesus Christ died for us and that His sacrifice atones for our sin and has paid the price for our redemption.

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In baptism, we are symbolizing our unification, our identification with Jesus Christ in His death,

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His burial, and His resurrection. So baptism then is an act of obedience to the command of Jesus by which the believer gives public testimony of our identification with Jesus Christ and His work on our behalf.

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That's what baptism is. It is an act of obedience to the command of Christ by which the believer gives public testimony of our identification with Jesus Christ and with His work on our behalf.

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And this is the symbolism, this is the connection that is made in Romans chapter 6. So with your Bible open there,

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I want you to notice in verse 3 the reference to baptism, or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?

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Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death. That word baptism, as I mentioned a month ago, is a word that means to be immersed or plunged.

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It's not a translation, it's a transliteration. So that Greek word baptizo has never been translated into English in our

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English translations. If we were to translate it, we would translate it as immersed because the word means to plunge beneath the surface, to submerge underneath something, to dip something, like you would take fabric and dip it in dye to change its color.

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Or like a ship would be submerged or immersed beneath the ocean when it sank. Or like a believer is immersed below water in baptism.

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So the ordinance of baptism then really is an ordinance of immersion. We immerse people, we plunge them beneath water as a symbol of something.

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So let's read together again Romans 6, 1 through 7. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may increase?

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May it never be. How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized, immersed into Christ Jesus, have been baptized, immersed into His death?

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Therefore we have been buried with Him through immersion, baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the

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Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him, notice the language of identification, if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin, for he who has died is freed from sin.

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Now in Romans chapter 6, the apostle Paul is arguing that because of our identification with Jesus Christ, our relationship to sin has changed.

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In the first three chapters of Romans, the apostle Paul lays out this blanket condemnation over all men,

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Jews and Gentiles, pronouncing all of us as under the curse of God, under the wrath of God, because we have all sinned.

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Those without the law have sinned without the law, those with the law have sinned against the law. We are all sinners. We are all in this horrible condition, this lost condition of being under the curse of sin.

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So then the question becomes, how is it that people who are under the sin and condemned by sin, because of their violation of the law, how are they made right with God?

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That's chapter 4. We are justified or made right and righteous on the basis of faith and faith alone, just as Abraham.

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That's the example he gives in chapter 4. Abraham was justified when he believed God. His belief, his faith was credited to him as righteousness.

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You and I are justified and made right before God in the same way that Abraham was. So that, chapter 5, now, verse 1, we have peace with God.

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Now we, who once were in Adam, dead because of Adam's transgression and his sin, under the curse of sin that Romans 1 through 3 describes, now we, who once were in Adam, have been taken out of Adam and put into a second and new humanity, a new

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Adam, that is Jesus Christ. So that all of those who are in Adam are under the curse of death, they are dead because of their… because of Adam's sin and the judgment that has fallen upon his entire race,

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Adam has plunged all who are in him into death. Well, just as Adam acted as our representative, sinning on our behalf, calling down the curse of God on our behalf, so it is that Christ, through His obedience, has also acted as our representative so that now, because of our identification with Him, we are no longer in Adam, instead we are in Christ.

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Something has happened, a transaction has been made. And how has that transaction been made?

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What… who or what affected that transaction? And how does that affect then my relationship with sin?

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That's what chapter 6 is about. So Paul answers that question, 6 verse 1, what shall we say then?

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Are we to continue in sin that grace may increase? That's a very good question. Since we're under sin and we lived in sin, and the

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Apostle Paul has argued that no matter what the weight of your sin, you can have it forgiven because sin… where sin abounded, grace abounded much more.

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So now the logical question is, well, if a heaping helping of sin just brings a heaping helping of even better grace, then

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I should probably just continue in sin so that I get more grace. And Paul says, no, may it never be.

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God forbid. That's not how this works. Verse 2, may it never be, how shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?

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Now, hold on a second. When did I die to sin? I don't remember dying. Do you remember dying? Anybody here died this last week?

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You don't remember dying? I don't remember dying. How did I die? In what sense did I die?

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How am I made dead to sin? Verse 3, do you not know that all of us who have been immersed into Christ Jesus… now that word is the word baptizo.

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It's not talking about wet water baptism. It's talking about a dry baptism. It's talking about an immersion, a plunging into something that is done irrespective of water.

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Water symbolizes it, but something else is true of us who are in Christ Jesus. Just as we were in Adam in our sin, so by the work of the

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Spirit of God we have been put in Christ by faith. So we have been immersed or submerged in Christ.

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Verse 3, do you not know that all of us who have been immersed into Christ Jesus have been immersed into his death? Now, if you read the word baptism and you're only thinking water baptism, then you would be thinking that by virtue of my water baptism

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I'm placed in Christ. That's not it. You are placed in Christ by the work of the

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Holy Spirit. You have been submerged and put into Jesus Christ. Some would argue in eternity past and faith is the manifestation of that.

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Some would argue that it was secured in eternity past by the electing work of the Father and that this actually happens in time at the moment of faith, and I'm not going to haggle with you or debate whether it's in eternity past or at the moment of faith.

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The truth is that everybody who is in Christ Jesus has been placed into or submerged, immersed into Christ so that the work that he has done in his death, burial and resurrection is credited or counted as our work so that because of our identification with Jesus Christ, what he has done, he has done on behalf of all who are in him.

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Just as Romans chapter 5 says that what Adam did, he did on behalf of all who were in him. Christ also has represented a new humanity, a new people, people chosen out of Adam's race, taken out of Adam and put into Jesus Christ, I think in eternity past, manifested at the moment of their faith, when they are officially recognized or this becomes a reality in time.

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We are in Christ, that is the language that Scripture uses to describe the believer's relationship to Jesus.

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We have redemption in him, we have adoption in him, we are elect in him, we obtain an inheritance in him, we are sealed by the

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Spirit in him, God has exalted us in the heavenly places in Jesus Christ, he has seated us there, our inheritance comes because we are in him.

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This defines, this is the defining relationship of the believer, we are in Jesus Christ.

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So by faith we are saved, we are born again, by faith we are placed in Christ, immersed in him so that his perfect life is credited to our account so that it can be in the eyes of the

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Father that everything Christ did, he did on behalf of, as a representative of and as a substitute for his people, all of those who are placed in him.

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So that his death is our death, his burial is our burial, his resurrection from the grave is the surety and security of our resurrection because we too have been raised then to newness of life.

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That's verse 4. We have been buried with him through baptism into death so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the

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Father so we too might walk in newness of life. So when did you die? You died when Christ died. You died when

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Christ died. And you were buried when Christ was buried and you rose again in him when Christ was raised from the dead.

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The wrath of God fell upon him, your substitute, so that you are in Christ, this is very significant, all of the wrath for all of your law -breaking, every last lawless deed you have ever committed, every thought, every word, every action, all of the wrath of the

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Father against that, an infinite wrath is poured out not on you but on your substitute who like an umbrella protects us from the rain,

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Christ shields us and protects us from the wrath of God. All of it is poured out on him and he absorbed all of that wrath, all of that punishment because he acted as our substitute.

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And we only get credit for that, we only have that because he acted in our stead, in our place as our representative and we were in him.

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And because we were in him, therefore, we died under the wrath of God. We didn't really die, we live, but we died in Jesus Christ so that the

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Father views his death as if all of that wrath and death were poured out on you and I because we were in him.

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That's what it means that he is our substitute. Christ died, he was buried and he rose again, he did this on behalf of his people, his sheep, those whom the

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Father had given to him, he acts as our representative, he acts as our substitute, he acts as our federal head so that everything that is true of him then becomes true of us.

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And so closely are his people identified with him that in his death, his death is credited to our account as if it is our death, his resurrection is credited to our account as if it is our resurrection and his perfect life is credited to our account as if we lived that perfect life when we could never live that perfect life.

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Baptism then is an act of obedience to the command of Christ by which the believer gives public testimony to our identification with him and his work on our behalf.

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In fact, I'm going to give you four phrases in that sentence, four phrases in that sentence that I'm going to break down in a very quick manner.

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Baptism is an act of obedience to the command of Christ by which the believer gives public testimony of his identification with Christ and Christ's work on his behalf.

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Those are your four points if you like outlines. If you need an outline, that's your outline for this morning. I'm going to go through all of those very quickly and I mean very quickly, far more quickly than you are used to hearing me go through some things.

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Water baptism is an act of obedience to the command of Christ. He said, go into all the world and make disciples, baptizing them into the name of the

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Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. It's a command of Jesus Christ to baptize disciples.

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Disciples are baptized. This is the pattern of the New Testament. Belief always precedes baptism.

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Belief, faith first, then baptism. And it is always a believer who does this. So it is an act of obedience that believers do, an act of obedience to the command of Jesus that believers participate in.

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Baptism always follows regeneration, conversion, the new birth, faith.

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It never precedes it. Second water baptism, the act of obedience to the command of Christ by which the believer gives public testimony.

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Baptism is for believers and only believers. Not for unbelievers, not for would -be believers, not we hope to make them believers at some point, not unbelievers,

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God forbid. Baptism is a believer testifying that what Christ did, He did on my behalf and I am identified with Him and therefore

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I'm going to obey this and do this as an expression of what is true of me because of what Christ has done on my behalf.

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So it is believers who participate in baptism, a proclamation of the believer's faith. And third, it is a testimony of their identification with Jesus, that we are in Him.

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This is a Christian ordinance. There's no doubt when somebody sees somebody being baptized, what faith, what historic individual they're being affiliated or associated with.

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It is a uniquely Christian ordinance and when we do this publicly, we're giving public testimony that Jesus Christ belongs to us and we belong to Him, that we are

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His, that He is the Lord and He has said, be baptized in obedience because of what I have done for you.

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And when we do this as an act of obedience, we are acknowledging His Lordship and submitting to that and giving public testimony to the fact that we belong to Him, we are identified with Him.

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And then fourth, it is a testimony of His work on our behalf. The symbolism of baptism is obvious.

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I should say the symbolism of immersion is obvious. The symbolism of immersion, the ordinance of immersion, is that in Christ we have died to sin and been buried and we have been raised again.

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So we immerse in water because we have been immersed in Jesus Christ, because we have been put in Him and under Him.

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He is our umbrella, our shield, our representative, our substitute who has done all of this for us. That is the sphere in which believers are in Jesus Christ and because that is true, we are acting out in a physical realm what is true of us spiritually, namely that we have died in Him, we have been buried with Him beneath the waters of judgment and that we have come out of that, not because we have done any of these things, but because somebody else did all of these things on our behalf, in our stead and in our place.

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That's what water baptism symbolizes. In baptism, we proclaim to the world that we belong to Christ, that we have died to sin, that we have been buried with Him and that we have been raised to newness of life.

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We proclaim that we live because He lives and we proclaim that we have forgiveness of sins not because of anything that we have done, but because, entirely because of the work that another did on our behalf, that's

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Christian baptism. So it is a proclamation. So now we're going to do some proclaiming.

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Our first person to be baptized can come on up at this point and give your testimony right here. I'm Julie Cave.

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This is hard to be up in front of everybody. I was very privileged to grow up in a

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Christian home where the Bible was taught and Scripture memory was encouraged. And when

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I was seven, I prayed a prayer and was baptized shortly thereafter.

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But it wasn't until I was around 20 years old that, as I was reading

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Scripture, I really came to the realization of who I was before God, that I was condemned and a sinner, and it was only through Christ that I had salvation.

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And in that moment, I had an incredible peace that took away all the anxiety that I had felt up until that time.

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And just hearing Jim's message a few weeks ago, I felt the conviction that I've never been baptized as a true believer, and I'm so grateful for that clear message.

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So I wanted to do this as an act of obedience. Julie, have you repented of your sin and trusted

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Christ for salvation? Yes. In obedience to the command of Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the

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Holy Spirit. That's a lot of people.

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Standing here today for me is far from comfortable, but I know that God has led me here to show my love and obedience

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I have for Him. Through His sovereignty, I have been saved through His grace. In this room full of faithful believers, family, and friends,

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I want to show my faith in our merciful Creator, following in obedience to Him by being baptized as a sinner chosen in the name of the

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Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amelia, have you repented of your sin and trusted

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Christ for salvation? In obedience to the command of Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

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Hello. I'm Mauleen. I'm 19, and I got saved when I was 7 years old. My mom shared the gospel with me, and that day

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I understood I was a sinner in need of a Savior. I am saved by grace, and there is nothing I can do on my own to be saved.

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Only through Christ, I am justified and made righteous. I understand that baptism does not save me, but I want to glorify the

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Lord and show that I humbly commit to Him. Mauleen, have you repented of your sin and trusted

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Christ for salvation? In obedience to the command of Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the

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Holy Spirit. It's not good to have your daughter go before you.

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Hi, I'm Diana. I was raised in a loving Christian home, but I do not have a specific time in my life as to when

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Christ saved me and became a part of my life. My walk with our Lord has been up and down, but He has never left my side.

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Over the years, I have fully come to understand that I am in need of a Savior, and only through Christ alone can

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I be saved. I love Him completely, and I want to serve Him in all ways. I am so thankful for a

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God who loves a sinner like me and wants me a part of His kingdom. Sorry.

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I am here today in obedience to our Lord. I devote myself to Him in front of this church that I love so deeply.

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Thank you. Diana, have you repented of your sin and trusted

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Christ for salvation? In obedience to the command of Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

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My name is Christopher Lundgren, and I grew up in a more fundamentalist church, so I've known

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I was a sinner for a very long time. But it didn't really bother me until I was about 14 years old when our pastor gave a message about Easter and went into excruciating detail about what

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Jesus suffered when He died on the cross for us. And after that,

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I kind of woke up and started paying more attention. And then that fall, we had a missionary come from Eastern Europe, and he gave a very, very good sermon,

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I guess you'd call it, about salvation, what salvation truly is, and that it's through God's election that we are allowed to be saved, which was very different from what my charismatic parents had taught me being saved was like.

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So that day, I heard the call from the Lord, and I answered that call, and I am here today to be baptized.

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Christopher, have you repented of your sin and trusted Christ for salvation? Yes, sir. In obedience to the command of Christ, I baptize you in the name of the

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Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Hi, I'm Andrea Lundgren.

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I grew up deeply entrenched in the word -faith heresy, believing I was saved at the unlikely age of three because I'd said the right words and had faith in my heart.

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These beliefs were compounded by attending Oral Roberts University and working closely with their Charismatic Life class and the curriculum that went with it, which centered on Oral Roberts' teachings and was reinforced with every single chapel service, twice a week for four years.

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It wasn't until years later, when my husband introduced me to teachers like Chris Roseborough and Justin Peters, that I realized how twisted and erroneous the word -faith teachings were and how lightly they viewed our wretched sinfulness and depravity, when they bothered referencing them at all.

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We started attending KCC via the online sermons last fall, and when Pastor Jim preached about God's approval in Hebrews 11 -2,

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I realized just how wrong my view of salvation was, though at the time, I thought it was just one more stone of error being overturned.

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It wasn't until January 2022, when Justin Peters interviewed

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Josh Bice and they spoke of their conversion stories, that I realized I had never been saved all those years, and had finally been granted repentance, finally putting my trust in Christ for salvation instead of relying on anything

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I could do or had done. I had finally been translated out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of God's dear

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Son, His righteousness being accounted as mine, thanks to His sovereign grace. After 27 years of heresy and error,

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I had come to know the truth at last, to Him be all the glory. Andrea, have you repented of your sin and trusted

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Christ for salvation? I have. In obedience to the command of Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

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Hello, my name is Jordan Thompson. I am a sinner, unworthy of heaven by merit and deed.

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Jesus died on the cross and paid my sin debt, providing a path to heaven through faith and obedience.

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This church has ignited a passion in my heart to love, serve, and obey the Lord in a way

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I did not know was possible. I am humbled to stand before you and partake in this proclamation of faith in the crucified, buried, and risen

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Savior. Jordan, have you repented of your sin and trusted

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Christ for salvation? Yes, sir. In obedience to the command of Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

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I did not grow up in a Christian household who knew and loved God. I was misled by my unbelieving and atheist family members.

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In my college years, I started attending a Christian church regularly. However, I now know that this was a works -based church, and much of what they preached and taught sounded conflicting and confusing to me, because it was.

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I never fully committed my life to Christ because I was being taught these heresies like works -based salvation, or that the story of creation and Noah, etc.,

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were just folktales to help people remember aspects about God before the written word. And in college, learning how much the

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Roman Catholic Church corrupted the Word of God and used it for their profit and the benefit of themselves and the rulers of the day.

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All these things made me distrust the Bible and Christianity. God softened my heart when

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I came to Kootenai Community Church and heard Pastor Jim teach through God Wrote a

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Book. For the first time, I heard how and why I could trust the Bible, and I didn't have to rely on my own strength of faith or my own goodness.

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The strength of my faith comes from the grace of God. My salvation is based on the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

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I am a sinner in need of salvation. Through faith in God and the sanctifying work of the

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Holy Spirit in my life, I want to live my life for the glory of God and make this public declaration of faith through baptism.

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Gloria, have you repented of your sin and trusted Christ for salvation? Yes. You will be used to the command of Christ to baptize you in the name of the

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Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Hello.

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I do not know the exact date of my salvation, but I do know what I believe, and that is that I am completely incapable of taking any action to save myself, but God is completely able to take all action in my salvation.

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As I was growing up, and particularly in my teen years, my sin became more and more evident to me.

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Before, I had thought of myself as a pretty good person. I assumed I was a Christian, but God revealed to me just how sinful

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I was. It terrified me because I realized I was going to hell. I was brought up in the

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Bible, and I knew that God punished all evildoers, but being brought up on the Bible did not mean

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I understood it fully. It took some time for me to see that I could never be good enough to be saved. And then, the single most important and simplest truth about the

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Bible became clear to me. I could never be good enough, but God was. The second person of the

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Trinity, Jesus Christ, had been good enough, and it actually traded places with me, taking my punishment and giving me his reward.

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According to the world, the idea of forgiveness, repentance, and faith is foolish, but to me it is the most incredible and mind -boggling thing ever.

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I know that it will always be that way for me, thanks to the sanctification of the Holy Spirit. Even as he grows me in the endless knowledge available to me in the

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Bible, he will keep in the forefront of my mind that most important truth. And just like everything else, it is not me who does these things, but God.

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My baptism today, too, would never happen if God had not opened my eyes, first to my need for salvation, and then my need for obedience.

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Praise be to him and him alone for it. I pray that it will bring glory to his name. Jaden, have you repented of your sin and trusted

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Christ for salvation? I have. In obedience to the command of Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the

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Holy Spirit. My name is

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John Pernides. Like many others, I grew up in a Christian home and was a sinning, disobedient child. Whereas at church,

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I put on a Good Little Boy show. At school, I took my parents' faith for my own and claimed to be a Christian, but never evangelized, and I knew

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I wasn't saved. I knew that I didn't want to go to hell, but I loved my sin, and when I did sin, I wasn't sorry for it.

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I do remember multiple conversations with my parents where, after getting corrected, I told God I wanted to follow him, but I still wanted to do it my own way.

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However, after encouragement from my parents, I started to pay more attention to the teaching at church and immerse myself in different books and podcasts to learn.

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Through this, I fully realized my need for a Savior. I started to love Jesus for the fact that he came down and died on the cross as the ultimate sacrifice to take away my punishment and guilt.

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I now knew that I was still going to sin, but found that I was truly sorry for what I had done and really wanted to find reconciliation.

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As it says in Ephesians, I was saved by grace from Jesus Christ and through faith, not of my own, but as a gift of God.

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I found that the Lord was changing my life in many ways. Probably the greatest wish for me was evangelizing and praying consistently for the first time.

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I then came to understand that baptism was a direct command from God and that I wanted to publicly proclaim my submission to his leadership.

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John, have you repented of your sin and trusted Christ for salvation? I have. In obedience to the command of Christ, I baptize you in the name of the

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Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. For those of you who don't know, this isn't actually my first rodeo.

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I was dipped in some water at a young age under what I've come to realize over the years was a false profession of faith.

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For those of you who were here, Jensen's, Barba's, Slippy's, welcome back. Good to see you all again.

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Growing up as a pastor's son, I knew the gospel from a very early age. As I got older, understanding the motions and in turn going through them was easy to accomplish from the outside perspective.

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Lying underneath was an unrepentant heart and a life that bore no fruit. As is so common for the products of a

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Christian home, I don't have a day, month, or year to assign Christian birthday to. All I know is I wasn't saved then and I am saved now.

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I rest solely in the redemptive work of God through his Son on the cross. I look solely to scripture with guidance from the Holy Spirit to understand and obey

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God's commandments. Today that means partaking in believer's baptism for the first and last time. Shepley, have you finally repented of your sin and trusted

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Christ for salvation? I baptize you for the first time in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

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I'm a bit of a rambler so I wrote this down. It's short. See if I can stick to it.

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Several years ago I sat in the gym at Kootenai Elementary School listening to Pastor Dave preach on 1

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Timothy 2. That day my eyes were opened to understand what a truly wretched person

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I was. That day is the day I repented and only by the grace of God I will spend eternity in heaven.

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Oh, my cell phone dropped. Jesse, have you repented of your sin and trusted

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Christ for salvation? I sure have. In obedience to the command of Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the

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Son, and the Holy Spirit. So if you're not crying, you weren't listening.

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Have everyone stand, please. I'm going to read you from Jude, verses 24 and 25.

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Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only

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God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time and now and forever.

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Amen. Let's pray together. Father, we are so grateful for the genius of this ordinance that you gave this to us as a declaration of the great work of Christ, his death, burial, and resurrection, of our unity with him, our identification with him, our death to sin, and rising to new life in Christ.

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And so I pray, Lord, as these have committed before you and before your body, that they would see this through, that we would see in their lives the sanctification without which no one may see the

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Lord. I pray, Lord, today for conviction for sinners who are here to see this and for strength of the saints.

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In Jesus' name, amen. We're going to close by singing the doxology. You have to do this from memory.

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Join with me now. Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

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Praise him, all creatures here below.

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Praise him above ye heavenly hosts.

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Praise Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.